An Opelousas transport company has received a warning from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture for the handling of a research chimpanzee that
died while being shipped to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's
research center in New Iberia.

The chimp was part of a group brought from a research facility in
Maryland.

Jeffrey Quebedeaux, who operates Stone Oaks Farms and Transports,
received an "official warning" from the USDA for a violation of the
federal Animal Welfare Act in the handling of the chimp and three others
in May 2011.

A Maryland research facility, Bioqual, Inc., also received a warning
from the USDA for violations related to the shipment of the research
animals.

Quebedeaux could not be reached for comment. Dr. Mark Lewis, president
and director of research for Bioqual, told The Daily Advertiser Thursday
that the violations were related to paperwork and did not cause the
death of the animal.

"This has nothing to do with the death," Lewis said. "It's about
paperwork "» All I know (about the death) is that they thought it might
have been a heart attack or stress-induced."

An animal rights group, Stop Animal Exploitation Now, based in Ohio,
called the warnings "slaps on the wrist" for multiple violations and
questioned why the companies did not receive harsher penalties. The
companies could have faced fines up to $10,000 per violation.

According to the USDA's warning notice, Bioqual "failed to certify" that
the four research chimps had been provided with food and water as
required for four hours before they were delivered for transport. The
facility also failed to provide written instructions for providing food
and water for the animals as required for the 24-hour transit period,
according to the notice.

Stone Oaks Farms was cited for accepting the animals for transit without
receiving certification that the animals had properly been offered food
and water.

Lewis said the chimps being transported were owned by the National
Institutes of Health, which owns about 350 research chimps across the
country. The NIH is considering moving all but about 50 of its research
chimps to a federal sanctuary, Chimp Haven, in Keithville in northern
Louisiana.

The NIH has already begun transferring 111 chimpanzees from the New
Iberia Research Center, which is operated by UL. More than a dozen were
transferred to the sanctuary in January, and others are expected to be
transferred in coming months.

UL has announced that the New Iberia center no longer uses chimpanzees
in research, but federal records indicate the center may have as many as
240 chimpanzees at the facility that are not owned by NIH.

UL spokesman Aaron Martin did not respond to a request for comment on
Wednesday.

USDA spokesman David Sacks said the agency believes it responded
appropriately to the violations.

"There's different variables involved with each unfortunate incident,
such as an animal dying, like here," Sacks said. "I'd stand behind what
the agency did in issuing a warning letter."